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WhirlAway Travel & Cruises

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26 W Market St

West Chester, PA 19382

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Our company specializes in luxury customized travel arrangements. Our areas of focus are Europe, Africa, Caribbean, South Pacific, and the US as well as river cruising and luxury cruising. …

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I do not recommend Whirlaway Travel. We had a horrible experience with an associate (Stacey) and the owner (Jamie). Long story short, they ended our contract without our consent just weeks before our trip to Pairs and have the audacity to say they are keeping our $500 deposit -- which is so wrong on so many levels since they canceled the contract out of the blue (disputed the charges with our credit card company already). They are seriously lacking in professionalism, communication, transparency, and customer service. Communication is their biggest issue. We are left scrambling just weeks before our trip to Europe and out $500. Absolutely disgraceful and unethical. I would highly recommend to anyone reading this to take your travel plans and money elsewhere. Whirlaway Travel left us high and dry, stressed out, and they stole a lot of joy out of planning my mother-in-law's 70th birthday trip to Paris. Jamie & Stacey, now might be an excellent time to reflect on these reviews and take ownership of your lack of transparency, poor communication, and maybe cool it with all of the finger-pointing you do with your clients -- it's tacky -- definitely not the way to run a successful business.

We planned our honeymoon with Jamie J. at Whirlaway Travel. We went to two different countries and she made it so easy. She got us all of the best accommodations at both locations. One of the employees at the resort said "Your travel agent really knew what she was doing because she got you the best room in the resort with the best package." Thank you Jamie for making our honeymoon so special! I would recommend Whirlaway every time.

Sunset in Key West

We went in with an idea about our honeymoon and a budget in mind. Jaime and Sara did an amazing job fitting our wants and needs and creating a unique, customized itinerary for our trip to Italy and Greece. Once we established a timeline and dates and budget, they worked to stay within those parameters. They provided an array of options and suggestions and provided a full itinerary that we picked and chose the options we wanted. Not once did we ever go above the initial budget, which I am sure we would have planning on our own. In fact, Sara's proactive monitoring allowed us to save a tremendous amount of money on our guided tours and flights due to time sensitive promotions she was able to secure for us. The all in one app made it easy for us to navigate to and from our multiple destinations and with our planned excursions with ease. Will definitely be looking to use WhirlAway again and have already been recommending to our friends.

The key to any business is customer service and WhirlAway falls very short in this area. Rather than taking the time to answer a simple question with an accurate answer, Jamie provided conflicting information, pointed fingers and waited until after the vacation was over to tell me to go back to the cruise line if I had any issues. I find it very hard to believe this company has been in business for (30) years yet fails when it comes to customer service / communication 101. I would not recommend this company to anyone based on the unprofessional manner in which they (Jamie specifically) deal with any issues / questions that arise during the actual vacation. Update (9/8): Appreciate the reply Jamie but what you are stating simply isn't true. You told me the charges should not apply to my (2) children (only the 1st (2) people in the room already covered under the base package) and to "check with the bursar" to verify the information you provided was correct. I did check with the bursar and they said the information was not correct and I followed-up with you immediately to provide this feedback. You indicated you were out of the office attending a wedding and I assume this in part explains your incorrect and slow responses. I communicated with you while I was on the ship and you had a full (2) business days to provide the proper level of support before we disembarked. You did not do this, provided incorrect information while we were on vacation and then waiting until we returned from vacation to tell me to contact the cruise line. I have the email exchanges that back up exactly what I have stated and would be happy to post them if you like. We all enjoyed the vacation but that has nothing to do with you providing poor customer service and not resolving or at least properly communicating while we were on the vacation.

Sep 8, 2016

Ii is unfortunate that you feel that my service was not to your satisfaction. When you initially contacted me during your cruise my prompt responses directed you to discuss the charges with the cruise line before you disembarked. Had you reached out to me personally with questions prior to the trip you would have experienced the high level of service that the other parties in the your group experienced. Regards, Jamie

Not the place to go if you're looking to stay within a reasonable budget. First of all it costs $250 just for the agents to pull information for you and even if you ask them to stay within budget they'll go over and book you 5 star everything. We specifically stated in our initial meeting that we want to explore the country, not sit in a hotel room. Anna didn't listen to this and booked all 5 star luxury hotels which is great and all if its in you budget...ours not so much. We were extremely disapointed with the service since I contacted Liberty travel (a free service) and they found us options for $1500 less than Anna promised and still at beautiful 4 star hotels. We asked for our deposit back since the services we agreed upon were not met but there was no refund or follow up on WhirlAways end to try to mitigate the issue. We will not be recommending to friends and family.

Don't purchase their travel insurance if you frequent this agency. They don't disclose this but if you need to cancel a trip, they charge your credit card 10% of the cost of the trip for their service. They stated this was a standard in the industry but most tours offer their own trip insurance and there is no service fee.

We have used Whirlaway for 2 major trips recently: our Hawaiian honeymoon in October of 2013 and a 10 day trip to Scotland in June of 2015. On both occasions, I was enormously grateful for their advice and expertise. Jamie planned our trip to Scotland last month as if she were planning it for her own family. She payed close attention to our "style" of travel and assembled an itinerary to suit. Not only was the itinerary well-researched, I also felt the security of knowing I could reach out while abroad for any questions or changes we may have had. As someone who travels often, I really appreciated the attention to detail, accessibility, and wonderful bonus amenities. I can't recommend Jamie and Whirlaway highly enough, and we are already looking forward to our next trip!

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• Triple Crown
• Horses First

Triple Crown Winner Whirlaway: Calumet's Mercurial and Brilliant Star

It's never a good thing when your boss calls you a knucklehead.

“You can teach him,” quipped legendary trainer Ben A. Jones of Whirlaway in the spring of 1941, “but you can't teach him much. ”

Exasperated by the colt's penchant for bolting out sharply on the stretch turn, Jones devised the "one-eye blinker" that shielded Whirlaway's right eye. Conducting a daring experiment with new jockey Eddie Arcaro in the irons, Jones was perched on his stable pony stationed 10 feet from the inner rail at the head of the stretch. Arcaro was instructed to pilot the flaming chestnut colt through the slim opening.

Born:  April 2, 1938 Died: April 6, 1953 Owner: Calumet Farm T rainer: Ben A. Jones Race Record: 60  32-15-9 Accomplishments: Fifth Triple Crown Champion (1941) Horse of the Year (1941-1942) Champion older horse (1942) Kentucky Derby (1941) Preakness Stakes (1941) Belmont Stakes (1941) Travers Stakes (1941) Jockey Club Gold Cup (1942) Elected to Racing Hall of Fame (1959)  

“I could see that old man just sitting there on his pony,” Arcaro said. “I was bearing down on him full tilt, and I was scared to death we'd have a collision that would kill the both of us. But B.A. [Jones] never moved a muscle, and Whirlaway slipped through there as pretty as you please. Then I knew we had a hell of a chance in the Derby.”

Undeterred by his zany behavior, the betting public sent Whirlaway off as the nearly 3-to-1 favorite in the 1941 Kentucky Derby. He trailed by 14 lengths down the backstretch. With his customized headgear and his new partner at the helm, Whirlaway flew down the stretch and crossed the wire eight lengths better than Staretor, clocked in a time of 2:01 2/5, a record that stood for 21 years. His final quarter (23 3/5 seconds) was only two-fifths of a second slower than Secretariat 's remarkable effort in 1973.

A star was born.

Swift but temperamental, Whirlaway was Jones' private pupil. The trainer devoted countless hours to his colt, accompanying him, schooling him, working him, relaxing him. In the end, the flashy chestnut rewarded Jones' painstaking efforts by becoming racing’s fifth Triple Crown winner and Horse of the Year in 1941. Whirlaway repeated as Horse of the Year the following season.

“That was one of the greatest jobs of training I ever saw,” noted Jimmy Jones, the trainer's son. “He was a peculiar horse in that he had a very stubborn disposition, but he learned. He would respond to habit-building, and that's really what made the horse go.”

The sight of the small colt with the unusually lengthy and bushy tail — streaming like a pennant in his wake when he was in high gear — gave rise to his popular nickname, "Mr. Longtail." More often than not Mr. Longtail's sensational races landed him on the front pages of the nation's sports sections above Ted Williams, who batted .406 that year, and Joe DiMaggio, who put together a 56-game hitting streak.

At age 5, Whirlaway retired with a record of 32 wins, 15 seconds and nine thirds from 60 starts with a bankroll of $561,161, the all-time leading money earning Thoroughbred. He spent much of his 4-year old season running for war bonds, racing 22 times and raising $5 million. That only added to Whirlaway's stature as a national hero.

Owned and bred by Warren Wright's famed Calumet Farm , Whirlaway's breeding curiously foreshadowed his erratic behavior. He was from the first American-sired crop of the 1930 English Epsom Derby champion, Blenheim II. In that race, Blenheim II broke to his right and continued racing outside before unleashing a devastating turn of foot in deep stretch to pull away. Whirlaway's unraced dam, Dustwhirl, was a bundle of nerves and the daughter of highly touted sire Sweep, the broodmare sire of 1937 Triple Crown winner War Admiral . 

As a juvenile, Whirlaway displayed flashes of brilliance, winning seven times inclduing four in stakes races, but he also went down in defeat on nine occasions. He made a mess of the Pimlico Futurity careening wide on both turns and beaten by five lengths while finishing third.

The start of his 3-year-old campaign was just as inconsistent, with Whirlaway winning two allowance races and losing a pair at Hialeah Park in Florida. The colt's maddening antics returned in the Blue Grass Stakes when he bore out badly, resulting in a 6-length loss to his chief rival Our Boots. The willful colt pulled a similar stunt in the Derby Trial when he nullified his blistering move on the far turn by drifting to the far outside to wind up second by three-quarters of a length.

Jones had seen enough. The consummate horseman cleverly concocted an equipment change to Whirlaway's blinkers a day before the 67th Kentucky Derby. With his pocketknife Jones sliced away the cup on his left side leaving the right eye covered, reasoning that this would curtail his veering out. Another part of the equation was to book future Hall of Famer Eddie Arcaro as the rider.

Fitted with the one-eyed blinker, when Arcaro called on the colt to run rounding the far turn, Whirlaway took off. He romped home to an 8-length victory. It was the first of eight Derby winners for Calumet Farm. One week later, Whirlaway walked out of the gate in the Preakness Stakes trailing the next-to-last horse by six lengths headinig up the backstretch. When Arcaro shook the reins the colt circled the entire field by the quarter pole and, gearing down, he won by 5 1/2 lengths.

“Not even a cyclone could head us off,” said a jubilant Arcaro on his way to the winner's circle. “I don't think I ever passed as many horses in such a hurry. I might as well have been shot from a gun. What a horse! What a horse!”

That scintillating burst of speed scared away all but three rivals in the Belmont Stakes, the "Test of the Champion". The other riders set a dawdling early pace, but Arcaro wasn't duped. When they hit the half-mile pole, Acaro shouted at his rivals, "the hell with this fellas, I'm leaving."

Whirlaway seized the race and kept right on running to become Calumet Farm's first of two Triple Crown winners, the other Citation in 1948.

“He was so good he made ducks and drakes of his opposition,” wrote Bryan Field in the New York Times . “The chestnut colt from the Calumet Farm raced through the stretch so easily that he had his ears pricking, and he also had that mightiest Triple Crown tilted jauntily on his handsome forelock.”

Whirlaway went on to triumph in the Travers — the only Triple Crown winner to do so. He finished out the year with 13 wins in 20 starts, plus five seconds and two thirds. At age 4, racing secretaries piled on the weight, but Whirlaway hit the board in each of his starts, winning a dozen of 22 races with eight seconds and two thirds.

Whirlaway suffered a tendon injury late in 1942, and when he ran fifth in the Equipoise Mile at Arlington Park in June of 1943, that ended a 48-race streak of in-the-money finishes. Over a four-year career Whirlaway ran 60 times, at 17 tracks earning $561,161.

Whirlaway stood stud at Claiborne Farm, but his legacy was not as a sire. He sired 18 stakes winners, including Scattered, who won the 1948 Coaching Club American Oaks. His daughter Whirling Girl produced a Bull Lea filly named Girlea who in turn produced Lady Golconda, the dam of three time Horse of the Year Forego . 

In 1950, Whirlaway was leased for three years to Marcel Boussac, a French textile magnate who shipped the horse to stand at Haras Fresnay-le-Buffard in Normandy and later negotiated an outright purchase of the stallion. On April 6, 1953, at age 15, Whirlaway died suddenly of a rupture in his nerve tissue moments after he was bred to a mare. He was buried on the French farm near Normandy, not far from that famous war battlefield. His body was later returned to Kentucky, and he is now buried at Calumet. Whirlaway was enshrined in the Racing Hall of Fame in 1959.  

Editor's Note: This story was originally published in 2014 and has been updated.

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WhirlAway Travel & Cruises

26 W Market St, West Chester, PA

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